The close Krause vs. French bout took the main-event slot following Bobby Lashley’s recent withdrawal from the event.

While lacking the starpower provided by the former WWE star, Krause and French proved equally matched and posted a competitive scrap.

Despite giving up more than half a foot of height, French continually pushed inside on his opponent, worked from the clinch, and then controlled the action once on the mat. This sequence played out for most of the first two rounds.

In the third, though, Krause briefly had victory within his grasp. The former WEC and Bellator fighter tagged French with a frontkick, followed with punches, and then scored a takedown to claim top position. Krause delivered some additional punishment to win the round, but only one of the three judges have him a 29-28 score. The other two saw it for French, 29-28.

French now has won three straight fights since a career-worst 1-4 skid from 2008 to 2009. Krause, meanwhile, had lost four of his past six bouts.

In the night’s co-feature, Sara McMann (3-0) kept her perfect record intact and picked up her biggest win to date with a unanimous-decision victory over veteran Tonya Evinger (8-6).

McMann, who won a 2004 Summer Olympics silver medal in women’s wrestling, made her pro-MMA debut back in May and picked up two quick victories against overmatched opponents. The 135-pound Evinger represented her most experienced opponent yet.

But McMann used frequent takedowns and a smothering and fairly active top game to control the action through two rounds. Evinger had her moments in the third and nearly pulled off an inverted triangle choke, but McMann escaped and returned to her takedown-heavy gameplan.

The final-round exchanges bloodied her, but McMann pulled off the clean sweep with a 30-27 victory on all three judges’ cards.

In other action, middleweight Brendan Seguin (23-17-1) picked up his fifth straight victory with a hard-fought unanimous-decision victory over recent UFC fighter Rob Kimmons (23-8). With solid clinch work effective punches to the body, Seguin earned 29-28 winning scores on all cards.

Kimmons, who had a seven-fight run with the UFC, now has lost three straight fights and five of his past seven.

The Latest

In this week’s Trading Shots, Danny Downes and Ben Fowlkes look at Ronda Rousey’s 34-second victory over Bethe Correia at UFC 190 and try to put it into terms that capture the moment without getting swept away by it.

A total of 26 fighters got their chance to shine on Saturday as part of UFC 190 at Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena. Now that UFC 190 is in the books, it’s time to commence MMAjunkie’s “Three Stars” ceremony.

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?